Refinish or replace your hardwood floors? A decision guide

The quick version: if your hardwood is structurally sound and has enough wood left above the tongue, refinish it. A full sand and refinish costs a fraction of new hardwood, and a light screen and recoat costs even less. Replace when the boards are too thin to sand, badly water damaged, loose across large areas, or simply the wrong floor for how you now use the room.

The good news is that most worn-looking hardwood is in far better shape than it appears. Scratches, dullness and a dated orange tone live in the finish and the top fraction of the wood, not in the boards themselves.

Step one: what kind of floor do you have?

Pull up a floor vent cover or look at the edge of a board at a threshold. You are trying to see the board in cross section.

• Solid hardwood is the same wood all the way through. If you can see a thick piece of oak or maple with a tongue on the side, you have solid.
• Engineered hardwood shows layers: a top layer of real wood (the wear layer) over a plywood or composite core.
• Laminate or vinyl looks like wood but has a printed photo layer. Neither can be sanded.

If you cannot tell, a contractor can usually confirm in a minute at a vent or a stair edge.

Step two: how much wood is left?

This is the deciding question for any sanding job.

For solid hardwood, look at the distance from the top of the board to the top of the tongue. Every full sand removes some of that. Older floors that have been sanded several times can get close to the tongue, at which point nails start to show and boards can split. If there is a healthy amount of wood above the tongue, you have room for more refinishing.

For engineered hardwood, the wear layer thickness is everything. The manufacturer lists it on the specification sheet, and it controls how many times, if any, the floor can be sanded. A thick wear layer behaves much like solid wood. A very thin veneer may take one careful sanding or none at all, and a screen and recoat may be the only safe option.

If you no longer have the paperwork, a contractor can check the wear layer at a vent opening or a threshold.

Screen and recoat vs full sand

These two jobs are often confused, and they solve different problems.

	Screen and recoat	Full sand and refinish
What happens	The existing finish is lightly abraded (screened) and a fresh coat of finish is applied	The floor is sanded to bare wood, optionally stained, then given several coats of finish
Fixes	Dullness, light surface scratches, worn traffic lanes that have not reached bare wood	Deep scratches, grey or bare wood, pet stains, uneven colour, a dated tone
Changes colour?	No	Yes, if you choose a new stain
Wood removed	Essentially none	A thin layer each time
Time and disruption	Shorter	Longer, with more drying and cure time
Publicly quoted Toronto range (Ecowoods)	$2.50 to $4.00 per sq ft	$4.75 to $7.50 per sq ft

A screen and recoat only bonds properly to a clean, compatible finish. Floors that have been waxed, or treated with some polish products, may not accept a new coat, and the only fix is a full sand. A small test patch answers the question.

What refinishing costs

Publicly quoted ranges seen in October 2026, not our prices:

Service	Range	Source
Screen and recoat	$2.50 to $4.00 per sq ft	Ecowoods
Full sand and finish	$4.75 to $7.50 per sq ft	Ecowoods
Refinishing	$3 to $6 per sq ft	General West Contractors
Full sand, stain and finish (Canada-wide)	$3 to $8 per sq ft	HomeStars
Adding a colour change (Canada-wide)	adds $1 to $3 per sq ft	HomeStars
Dustless refinishing (Canada-wide)	$6 to $11 per sq ft	HomeStars
Stair refinishing (Canada-wide)	$15 to $40 per step	HomeStars

For comparison, Renohouse lists new solid hardwood installed at $10 to $18 per sq ft, before removal of the old floor. The full picture of new-floor costs is in our hardwood flooring cost guide.

Things that move a refinishing quote: the number of coats, the finish product, a stain or colour change, repairs before sanding, stairs, and how much dust control the job uses. Our quote will itemize each of these, and we apply stain samples to your sanded floor so you approve the colour before we commit [CONFIRM].

When replacement makes sense

Refinishing is not always the answer. Replacement is the better call when:

• There is not enough wood left. Solid boards worn close to the tongue, or engineered boards with a thin or exhausted wear layer.
• Water damage has gone deep. Boards that are black-stained through, cupped badly after a leak, or have soft spots from rot. A few boards can often be replaced; large areas usually cannot be saved.
• The subfloor is the problem. Bouncy, sloping or squeaking floors may need the subfloor fixed, which means the finished floor has to come up anyway.
• The floor is the wrong product for the room. Solid hardwood in a basement or a kitchen with constant spills may be better swapped for something more suitable. Our comparison of hardwood, engineered and vinyl plank helps here.
• You want a different layout. Herringbone, a wider plank or a continuous floor across rooms that currently have different materials cannot be achieved by sanding.
• It is not wood at all. Laminate and vinyl wear through to the core and must be replaced.

The middle path: repair, then refinish

Many floors fall between the two. A handful of damaged boards, a patch from an old wall removal, or pet stains in one corner can be fixed by weaving in matching boards, then sanding the whole room so the repair disappears under one even finish. Our floor repair page explains how board replacement works.

This is also how older homes keep original floors when a renovation changes the layout: new boards are laced into the old, and a full sand ties them together.

A quick decision checklist

Work through these in order:

1. Is it real wood? If not, replace.
2. Is there enough wood above the tongue, or enough wear layer? If not, replace.
3. Is the subfloor sound? If not, fix it, which usually means replacing the floor over it.
4. Is damage limited to a few boards? Repair those, then refinish.
5. Is the finish dull but the wood itself intact? Try a screen and recoat.
6. Are there deep scratches, bare spots or a colour you dislike? Full sand and refinish.

A note on stairs

Stairs often wear faster than floors because every step takes concentrated traffic on the nosing. They can usually be refinished along with the floor so the colours match. Where treads are cracked or too worn, replacement treads are an option. See staircases.

Find out what your floor can take

The fastest way to an answer is to have someone look at a board edge and the worst areas. Book a free quote and we will check the board thickness or wear layer, test the existing finish, and tell you honestly whether a recoat, a full sand, a repair or a replacement is the right fit, with each option priced line by line. Read more about our hardwood refinishing service.